


No Omen But His Country's Cause

by linaerys



Category: Ian Fleming - James Bond series
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:lasergirl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 06:58:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a big scoop of Daniel Craig's James Bond, as requested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Omen But His Country's Cause

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Cosmic for the speedy beta!

It's a simple task, and one he likes: set the charges, leave the ship to blow up when it goes off to sea. It sits docked in the port of Iraklio, Crete, under the watchful eyes of the harbour guard, guns bristling back out at a country that means it no harm. James is the one who means it harm.

There are tasks that have been explained to him, that he's committed to memory: this wire here, that wire there, arm it only when it's far from shore or you'll kill civilians and we won't want that. Oh, and if you're found out, we don't know you, as usual. That's the way it goes.

And of course it doesn't remain simple. There's the girl in the bar the night before, who closes her eyes slowly, and arches her back, and asks for James to buy her a drink. James switches drinks with her and watches her slide to the floor twenty minutes later, beautiful and boneless. He switches hotels.

Then the ship itself, guarded and double-guarded. He gets in at night, and waits for daylight in a supply closet. This is the part he never grows used to, the waiting. He runs over scenarios in his head for a while, what will he do if he's discovered, how will he get off the ship. He retraces his steps mentally, noting sentry posts, gun placements, the door to the engine room, the sabotages he can work if the bomb fails.

Those pale quickly, though. There aren't any possible sabotages this time. If the bomb fails, the ship gets away, and he'll have to track north to the Black Sea, possibly after it's delivered its cargo. It's set to dock in Istanbul later, with intelligence for terrorists that operate out of Turkey. Of course, there is always another way, and a way beyond that, a fight with tooth and nail to fulfill his mission, but he's still battered from the last time he went off the reservation. He wants this job to be easy.

And he needs to earn back M's trust. She trusts him to do what he feels is either right or expedient or both, but she doesn't trust his judgment about what those things are. A few well-executed missions with no mishaps may ease her mind. He'd like that, more than he'd admit, not to see suspicion in her eyes the next time she looks at him.

The light coming under the bottom of the door changes from pure fluorescent to fluorescent mixed with sunlight. The guards start change, exchanging terse words in Farsi. They relieve each other in a stately dance on this ship, cascading down from the bridge where the order is given, as James has observed from the air, from chatting up drunken guards, and from bribing the harbour agent. Between the moment the guard changes near where he's hidden to when the gasoline tanks will be left unattended is five precious minutes.

He pulls on one of the uniform hats in the closet and opens the door. It won't help him if he's really noticed--he's taller and fairer than anyone crewing this ship--but it may help unobservant eyes slide off him.

It's slightly longer than he calculated from the closet to the tanks, or his gait is stiff from a night spent wedged among brooms and rolls of toilet paper. That's the excuse he gives himself when he hears the tense, surprised whisper, "James."

James turns, elbow ready to take off the head of whoever knows his name, here where his anonymity should be perfect, but he lowers it when he sees Felix Leiter, looking as surprised at James feels--only mildly--and carrying a backpack that might be the twin to James's own. "Felix," he says in return, and feel a sardonic smile twisting his lips. "Why can't our governments ever get on the same page?"

"Annoying, huh?"

"Tiresome, even," James returns. "Which of our bombs do you suppose we should set?"

"At least we're on the same side this time." This said in a harsh whisper as they run along, barely audible above the machine noise of the ship at rest.

Two men are harder to hide than one. James ducks below an overhanging pipe that grants a shallow, dark shadow, and Felix has to wedge in behind him: two bodies in a space for barely one. They're pressed hip to groin, back to chest; Felix's breath warms his neck.

They'll be seen, so James snakes out his arm and fells the man with a knife in the throat. It's quick and brutal, and he can see Felix's eyes widen, impressed.

"Good arm," he says. "Next one's mine."

And so he is. Felix jabs the approaching guard in the throat and he falls, choking on his own shattered windpipe. "Yours too," James responds.

They place both bombs. Felix professes more confidence in British workmanship than his own country's --"sad day, that"--but he won't leave until his is attached as well.

"Do you think it's going to be a problem?" James asks, hardly audible here in this close space.

"When are you supposed to arm yours?" Felix asks in return.

"When it's well out into the harbour."

"Same."

They swim off in opposite directions through the silty water, and promise to meet up later in an expat bar that overlooks the harbour.

Felix makes it in a half second after James. The bar is up a steep cobbled street, a couple blocks from the ferry terminal. "Nicely done today. Don't suppose you can tell me what the Brits have against the El Capitan?"

That's not what MI-5 is calling the architect of recent attacks in Bali, Delhi and Jerusalem, but James can make the inference. He gestures for a drink. "Now why would I do that?"

"Fair enough. I'm sure it's the same as us."

James isn't so sure at all, as the sands of politics continue shifting under his feet, but the man Felix calls El Capitan is a bad man, and killing bad men is something he can sleep easy about, no matter what M says. It's the ones he leaves alive that keep him up at night.

"I suppose you're off to find a woman," Felix says after their first drink is finished.

James smiles, but lets no warmth touch his eyes. He sees something in Felix he recognizes, always has. Felix wears the same expression, anticipation with a hint of defeat. They've both lost fights, lost wars, and wear the scars.

"Something like that," he says. Felix's raised eyebrow indicates that he reads the words James doesn't say. James can go either way, could just enjoy the evening with the one man he can still trust, but he chooses to extend the invitation. Because trust is a rare and precious thing, more difficult to find than smooth skin, soft hair and silky lips. Much more difficult.

"I wasn't sure," says Felix. "Sometimes a woman is a fine thing after a job like that."

"Women are for pleasure," says James, and Felix is kind enough not to call him on that lie. A lie that's becoming truth. Women are pleasure or bait, or both. Men are pleasure or adversaries. Or both.

"I don't enjoy the kill, particularly," says James. "But I do enjoy the fight." Felix bares his teeth in the same challenge.

The ship is set to leave on the evening tide. If they find anything wrong, the ship won't leave, but James and Felix will have to, a half step ahead of those who would kill them. It makes its slow way out into the welcoming sunset, and when nothing is left but a silhouette, James nods to Felix and presses a button on his phone. One explosion ignites and then another. There's no way of telling which bomb went off first. James's eyes flicker over to Felix and he takes another sip of his drink.

James is staying in the Hilton overlooking the bay. From his balcony he can see the pools lit up, spilling one into the other, like something from which one of Odysseus's nymphs might rise. There are nymphs down there right now, ready and waiting, but tonight he's got something harder. Alcohol has done little to dull the buzz of adrenaline from the boat earlier.

He keys the door, and automatically checks his usual safeguards, the tag of paper in the doorway, the hair on top of his laptop. Not that there's anything on it--he wouldn't leave something like that in an unsecured hotel room--but he likes to know the difference between a maid and a snoop. Felix chuckles behind him.

"Can't be too cautious," says James.

"No argument here."

He frisks Felix, for sport and to see how far he can push it. This is a game too that spies play with one another, weapons hidden in improbable places. He finds the tiny pistol tucked down the front of Felix's trousers, and brushes lingering touches against Felix's cock in the process.

"Can't take that one away from me," says Felix, after James gives him a long firm stroke. Felix is hard against the fabric of his boxers before James slides a hand up his thigh and takes the weapon away from him.

He isn't as well armed as some James has encountered, but he enjoys being searched enough that it makes up for the relative lack of armament. He tenses and relaxes depending on what James's hands touch. James makes mental notes for later, what of Felix's wants more attention. He likes a hard body under his hands sometimes, someone who doesn't mind some bruising, who can give it back just as well.

"My turn?" Felix asks when James is done. He's half undressed and a small pile of weapons sits on the desk next to the bed.

James likes to carry big, bulky guns, and he has the frame to hide them, the Walthers under each arm, the knife at the small of his back. Felix's blunt fingers find them all. His thumb skims over James's nipple as he undoes the double holster.

Felix finds bullet scars with his fingers when he takes James's shirt off. James finds a twisted knife scar that arcs over Felix's shoulder and traces it with tongue and teeth.

It's Felix who pushes James back on the bed and pulls his trousers off. "I heard about what Le Chiffre did to you," he says, cupping what Le Chiffre injured, but not beyond repair. "Everything okay down there?"

James chuckles, because now he can--long enough past that pain that it's been eclipsed by other kinds. "You tell me," he says.

Felix licks him long and hard, while his fingers are gentle and teasing behind. James feels drunk on alcohol and adrenaline, but the room stays still, and the sensation of Felix's beard on his thighs is sharp enough, even through the giddy relief of the job being over and well done.

Felix brings him to the edge with his mouth, softer and more skillful than James would have imagined. He doesn't let James come, laughs when James complains. "Don't think you're getting out of here that easily," he says, voice low and amused. "I haven't put you through your paces yet."

"What does that mean?" James asks, but doesn't wait for an answer.

It's not quite a fight, but a challenge. Who can take it. They argue over that a bit. James wants to see what Felix is made of, and there's no better way than having Felix buried inside him, both wondering who's going to last the longest, hand in a hard circle around his cock, holding off coming as long as possible.

Felix pushes his fingers in and leaves James pushing back against them. He circles the base of James's cock with his finger hard enough to back him off from the edge. He brings . . . things with him sometimes, he says, promising for next time. And there will be a next time, no matter who wins tonight.

He spreads his fingers to open James, until he's loose and ready and feeling like he could take something larger than anything Felix has to give him. He loves that moment, the only time he wants to surrender anything at all.

James wins this time, dragging a groan and fingers dug hard into his hips out of Felix before releasing himself.

"You win," says Felix. He has a low growl of a voice at all times, speaks rumbling sarcasm like music into cell phone, across lonely stretches of time where the only other voices James hears speak lies. Now it's deeper still, terse and eloquent. "Of course, I didn't exactly lose."

Felix sleeps there. There's one gun under his pillow, one under Felix's. There's not a safer place for him to be in all of Crete.

In the morning over coffee they find out Felix's hotel has been destroyed--a bomb in the lobby that levels the building. "Guess it's getting a little too hot for me here. You watch yourself." He slides a newspaper across the table and gets up to leave.

A group of American marines meet and helo him off the roof of the building. Felix's cover is blown here for a little while. They won't be crossing paths in the Mediterranean again until whoever did the deed, and whoever gave them the information are dead or brought in.

The newspaper has words circled, meaningless now, but probably useful some day. James copies them down into his book, just in case.

***

That's James's next assignment. Of course, he's supposed to be on leave here in Crete while things cool down for him as well, but there's a man with an eye patch, and the burnt fingers that suggest a low-rent munitions expert.

James tails him to Malta, chases him through narrow alley ways, jumping over balconies and roofs until he has his man. With a knife and a sharp edged smile, he extracts names and dates, places and payments. It's a faction in the CIA who want him dead. Not surprising--James is only glad he found the man first.

Once he has the information, the man gets to die. Quickly, of course--James isn't that far gone. He's sure M won't like this death, but Felix deserves it.

He feeds the information he gets to M and to Felix. If he has to justify himself, he has plausible enough reasons--an American they can trust is always worth a little shared information--and anyone _he_ can trust is worth even more.

***

It isn't until a year later that they meet again, in a bar in Cyprus, chosen by hints and bluffs and misdirection. It's not a nice one but it's no dive either. It's not a coincidence they're both here, but for once, it's not because of shared enemies, just the convenience of the location. It's another crossing point in the Mediterranean. James likes the girls in bikinis, and the fact that they take the British pound. He doesn't know what Felix likes.

From his expression, though, it seems that what Felix likes is James. He's drinking an ouzo sullenly at the bar, but his expression slides toward something like friendliness when he sees James. For his own part, James can feel his cheeks loosening, a smile threatening to pull at the corners of his mouth. In a world with few allies and fewer friends, seeing Felix is one of the pure pleasures he has left.

"James," says Felix, raising his glass. "What are you drinking?" His voice is tenser than his body-language, and James reads this for the test it is: are you still chasing a dead woman, still drinking in her memory?

"Vodka, rocks," he says, holding up fingers for depth. Not too many yet. He hasn't decided whether tonight is about drunkenness or Felix yet, or some combination of the two.

Felix is picking at the cold appetizers on the bar. They're not too horrifying, replenished every hour or so by the bar-tender, a middle-aged Greek woman with eyes like black olives. James takes a piece of grilled haloumi. It's cold and tough and salty and it squeaks between his teeth.

"On the job?" Felix asks. _Time for me?_ he doesn't need to add.

James smiles. "Between jobs. Cyprus is as good a stopping place as any."

"Libya got a little hot for you?" A dig, perhaps, but a friendly one. Felix sighs a moment later and adds, "It got too hot for us too."

"How about you?"

"No job, not now."

James tilts his head to one side. Felix always seems on the verge of losing his job, too honest by half, and too willing to throw in with who he believes is right over who is paying his bills. Not a good quality in a spy. One he shares all too often. Of course, England is poor enough these days that her scruples are less expensive.

"Anything I should know about?" James asks. He takes a sip of the vodka. It warms his lips, stings his tongue, and burns down his throat, hot and sweet and perfect.

"They're just letting me cool my heels for a couple weeks." And again, there is the unspoken _as if I care, as if this is real punishment, as if I couldn't just walk away._

Later there is dancing and girls, a tall blonde pushing her ass into James's groin, as Felix drinks and watches. James sends the girl over to him, and he dances with her for a few minutes, but it doesn't matter, that's not what they're here about.

Bars close late in Cyprus, if ever. It's still early spring; the days are warm but the nights are chilly, and a cold wind blows in off the Mediterranean, shivering James's skin when they spill out onto the steep streets.

"Where are you staying?" James asks.

Felix laughs at everything and nothing, and pulls James by his shirt into the shadows between two buildings. His body is warm against James's, and when their mouths meet it's a promise of more, not just tonight but other chance meetings in chance cities. It says, _you're an ally and a friend and this too sometimes_.

Felix is staying in an expensive but poorly constructed villa that looks out over the ocean. The sheets are scratchy and the towels are threadbare, but in the morning the view will be of Odysseus's sea-- _mare nostrum_ , but also sometimes their sea, the enemy's sea--sparkling under the sun, and now, through the thin-paned windows, James can hear the waves crash on the shore.

***

James isn't used to waking up next to someone, particularly not a man, one who smells of stale booze. He showers vigorously in desalinated water that is slippery on his skin.

"Where to now?" Felix asks as James pulls on his jacket.

"Majorca, I think," James answers. "M wants me there."

"What's it like working for a woman?" Felix asks.

"Better than working for the bad guys," James answers.

Felix grins wolfishly. "Sometimes we're the good guys too," he says without rancor. "Be seeing you, James."

There are superstitions about saying goodbye, and so they never do.

  



End file.
